Howard Cosell

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He is and always will be the greatest of all time. Just ask him. Then watch him. Last week Muhammad Ali greeted seven invited guests to his dazzling new boxing gymnasium on the grounds of his Michigan estate, consenting to a rare, exclusive interview and first-ever photographs in his environs. Ali, the 56-year-old international icon, has difficulty speaking because of the effects of Parkinson's disease. But he still manages to communicate eloquently with his patented smile, expressive eyes, keen sense of humor and persuasive showmanship.

Philip K. Wrigley, the late Cubs owner, called Jack Brickhouse into his office. It was May 1960, three weeks into the new season. The Cubs already had plunged into the National League cellar. "Jack, I want to make a trade, and I want you to handle it for me." "Who for who?" "And Mr. Wrigley looked me in the eye," Brickhouse recalled, "and said, `Lou Boudreau for Charlie Grimm.' " And once again the Cubs made baseball history. Boudreau, who had been Brickhouse's sidekick on the club's telecasts, descended from the broadcasting booth and into the dugout to become the team's manager.

John and Nancy Meinhardt of Arlington Heights both love to read. And that's good, now that they have more than 9,000 books at their disposal. The Meinhardts recently opened Victoria's Books in downtown Arlington Heights, and their shelves are stocked with used tomes from floor to ceiling. Book prices start at $1 for paperbacks and average about $7 for hardcovers. John worked in the banking industry before he was downsized out of a job in 1994. And over 30 years or so, he and his wife had amassed an impressive collection of books.

This just in. Tiger and Fuzzy will meet within the month. Maybe sooner. This promises to be the biggest powwow since Nancy and Tonya. Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to be politically incorrect. Strike that word powwow. Make it, uh, tete-a-tete. No. Wait. That's French. Could offend somebody. I know French always offends me. Before I go any further with this column, let me apologize in advance if I offend Tiger Woods, friends of Tiger Woods, admirers of Tiger Woods, not to mention native Americans, immigrants, mothers-in-law and gardeners.

It was a great weekend of basketball; it was a tough weekend for one basketball analyst. CBS officials Sunday said they didn't expect any repercussions over Billy Packer's "monkey" comment. The veteran CBS analyst referred to Georgetown star Allen Iverson as a "tough monkey" during the second half of Saturday's Hoyas-Villanova telecast. Packer, after consulting with executive producer Rick Gentile, apologized on the air. "I hope nobody took offense to that," said Packer, who has been a TV analyst for 27 years.

This was bound to happen: The White Sox are struggling to draw crowds at Comiskey Park. The Cubs, slowly but surely, are bringing the fans back to Wrigley Field. Yet the Kane County Cougars, the Class-A Midwest League affiliate of the Florida Marlins, are packing them in at Geneva's Elfstrom Stadium. Through April and May, attendance for Cougars games was up 38 percent over the same period last year. The team is averaging 5,600 fans. Midwest League attendance is up 11 percent. And it's pretty obvious what's going on. "I wish I could pinpoint it and say it's just us," said Cougars GM Bill Larsen.

Journalism has been the resort of all sorts of ungracious persons, as those who routinely rank the profession below congressmen and car dealers in trustworthiness will attest. There's a certain amount of ego involved in striving to afflict the comfortable, and sometimes it shows. It shows most painfully and obviously when journalists become as prominent as the public figures they cover. Such was the case with Howard Cosell, who was a vain and often boorish man. In the immediate round of eulogies after his death, few writers failed to attest to his character flaws, which he himself readily admitted and often seemed to glory in. Cosell may not have been everyone's pal, but he had a soul and a tenacity that was unrivaled in his field.

It was almost too ironic that Howard Cosell, who could rail against injustice in and out of sports with all the passion of an old-time revival preacher, would pass away just a few hours after the latest boxing fiasco. Cosell, 77, died early Sunday morning in a New York hospital after a long illness. ABC, his employer for almost 40 years, paid tribute at the start of its Sunday afternoon sports programming. Though he became an embittered man late in his 39-year career with ABC radio and television, Cosell also was one of the driving forces in turning professional sports from a diversion into a billion-dollar industry in the 1970s.

It was easy to parody Howard Cosell. Everyone could do that pushy, nasal, New York voice. The one I would do at parties was Cosell interviewing Mickey Mantle: "Mick, your grandfatha died before he was 50. Your fatha died before he was 50. Tell me, Mick, do ya think you'll make it?" The generation that does not know Howard Cosell still does know him. Cosell is in every loud and opinionated voice in sports. Mine, too. Cosell is in every talk-radio ranter named Mad Dog or Wild Man. He is in all the cable studio hosts who ambush jocks or belittle what they cannot do themselves.

By Robert McG. Thomas Jr., New York Times News Service | April 24, 1995

Howard Cosell, who delighted and infuriated listeners during a 30-year career as the nation's best-known and most outspoken sports broadcaster, died Sunday at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in Manhattan. He was 77. Cosell died of a heart embolism, said his grandson, Justin Cohane. He had undergone surgery in June 1991 for the removal of a cancerous chest tumor. From his first days on radio in the 1950s to the peak of his fame during his 14 years on "Monday Night Football," Cosell-once simultaneously voted the most popular and the most disliked sportscaster in America-tended to be loved and loathed for the same undisputed characteristics: his cocksure manner and his ebullient, unqualified immodesty.